Navajo Administrative History

But situations like the Golden Eagle incident were an extraordinary exception to the general pattern of relations between local Navajos and the park. The web of relationships created genuine economic, cultural, and personal interdependence, spawning close friendships among people of different cultural backgrounds. Park officials tried to be good neighbors, offering area Navajos as many of the benefits of the modern facilities as they could. These were both institutional and cultural. According to Bill Binnewies, individuals rather than a Park Service uniform made these relationships work. Park personnel who sought camaraderie and mutual respect made the NPS green a friendly sight for area Navajos. [23]

This closeness dated back to the days of Hosteen John Wetherill and was a characteristic feature of the people who worked at the monument. There had been what one former superintendent characterized as the "informal Navajo Assistance program," a comprehensive effort by the Park Service to be good neighbors. Art White made it a point to grade the road all the way to Shonto, clearing what had become a lifeline for the people of the vicinity. He also allowed Navajos to fill their fifty-five gallon water barrels at the park, loaned his neighbors tools, and generally worked to promote harmonious relations. Binneweis encouraged a young Navajo woman who worked as a seasonal ranger at the park to go back to school to get a teaching certificate. She became the first Navajo with credentials to teach in the Shonto district. Frank Hastings recalled pulling pick-ups out of sand and snow, feeding people in times of heavy snow, taking in local Navajos in need of temporary care, and serving as a communications center for the people of the region. [24]

Other kinds of ties bound the people of the park and their neighbors together. Bud Martin, P. J. Ryan, and other rangers developed an affinity with their Navajo neighbors based on the similarities in their personalities. Private people who enjoyed the solitude of the monument and did not particularly care for intrusions, the staff found that they had common ground with their Navajo neighbors. Ryan later remarked that he found the constant questioning of Navajos by the anthropologists to be an intrusion. On one occasion, he told a number of Navajo workers about an Irish folktale that equated the appearance of a raven overhead with impending death. When asked by anthropologists to recount their folklore, the Navajos who heard Ryan's story responded by repeating it as if it were a Navajo folktale. The anthropologists later asked Ryan if he had any more Irish stories for them. This comic incident underscored how close people of different backgrounds could become. Ryan's ability to communicate with Navajos and his respect for their privacy helped build a close relationship. [25]

The increase in the number of Navajos who worked at the park also contributed to the establishment of close ties. As the facilities at Navajo National Monument were built, the need for labor grew. Other activities that improved visitor service, such as the construction of the cross-canyon trail, brought more Navajos to the park. Some, such as Delbert Smallcanyon, began as temporary laborers and made careers out of working at the park. Park officials were pleased with the developments. At chapter meetings, they had supporting and explanatory voices, advocates with an investment in the park and its policies. [26]

A number of families were well represented at the monument. Bob Black was the patriarch of Navajo employees; his granddaughter Rose James worked at the monument in the 1980s and 1990s. Hubert, Floyd, Robert, and John Laughter all worked at the park, as did Seth and Akee Bigman. The Begishies were well represented among park employees. Many other relatives of these and other families also worked at the monument, adding a familial dimension to the workplace.

The park also broadened its base of visitors in the 1980s. For the first time, Navajos became frequent visitors to the park. Many had long shied away as a result of cultural taboos concerning Anasazi places, but as they became more exposed to Anglo ways of living, Navajos too came to visit. Clearly children were a major influence. Visitation by Navajos increased after the beginning of a Navajo Nation program to place teenagers in summer positions at the monument. The young people returned home and brought their parents back to visit with them. Even the most traditional Navajos who came to the park--those who refused to go to the ruins themselves--still walked the Sandal Trail to the Betatakin overlook. [27]

Visitors load their horses for a trip to Keet Seel.

In visitor service, area Navajos played an important role that resulted from the non-contiguous nature of the park. The trip from the visitor center to either Betatakin or Keet Seel ruin crossed Navajo land. Eight miles distant, Keet Seel was easier to reach by horse than foot. In 1952, area Navajos began to make horses available for guided tours to Keet Seel. Pipeline Begishie, the patriarch of a local family, organized the trips. Many of the people in the area allowed their horses to be used--for a fee--and Begishie or one of the others close by guided the trips. The fee was ten dollars per day for the guide and five dollars for each horse. The animals they used were big and strong, one observer recalled, and the trips had real appeal for visitors. [28]

The memorandum formalized the outfitting proces at the monument, requiring more than a verbal agreement and possibly precipitating a change in the vendor. One summer in the early 1960s, Pipeline Begishie decided that the horse trips were more trouble than they were worth. Some accounts suggest that one of Begishie's neighbors, E. K. Austin, bullied him into a cessation of his activity. Into this vacuum stepped Austin, who claimed the land through which the trips had to pass on the way to Tsegi Point and Keet Seel as his own. Much of the exchange between Begishie and Austin occurred without the knowledge of park personnel. Yet Austin stepped forward and claimed the right to offer services to Keet Seel. In exchange for the right of passage across Navajo lands, the Park Service agreed to let the Austin family offer guided horse trips to the outlying section.

E. K. Austin related a different version of the transfer. He claimed to have taken pack trips to the ruins since the days of John Wetherill. In his view, Begishie was an interloper, crossing on Austin's land. The monument was located in the district of the Shonto Chapter, but Austin was enrolled in the Kayenta chapter. He believed this accounted for Begishie's presence. The disagreement became serious in the early 1960s, and both Art White and his successor Jack Williams tried to mediate. They were unsuccessful, and both Austin and Begishie were called to Window Rock. There, Austin claimed, he was vindicated and offered the service that was rightly his.

Austin's privilege to offer horse trips was not exclusive, although he worked to make it a monopoly. As late as 1966, Jack Williams noted that Begishie's permit to carry people to Keet Seel was valid, but he would not do so as long as the Austins did. The transfer may have been done by force or by intimidation, but the result was the same. E. K. Austin had control of the horse trips to Keet Seel. [29]

This was a less than optimal arrangement for the Park Service. Since Stephen T. Mather's day, the agency prided itself on the sophisticated and comprehensive level of service that it could offer visitors. The Park Service built its national constituency by making affluent Americans comfortable in the national parks. MISSION 66 sought to broaden the appeal of the park system to the post-war traveling middle-class. It created facilities for auto travelers and their families, including accommodations, interpretation, and the range of other necessary accouterments. Generally the right to offer concessions in park areas were the subject of a bid process. The competition was fierce, and sometimes the profits were limited by NPS regulation. But under the strict control of the Park Service, service in the park system was generally first-rate. [30]

But the Park Service had little control over neighboring landholders who owned the land between the detached sections of Navajo National Monument. The superintendent and staff could only hope for the best. Service to visitors was spotty. In some cases the tours went well, but generally they did not. One staff member remembered the Austins as "good capitalists." They delivered people to and from Keet Seel in safety, but it was not the "trip of a lifetime." But the Park Service had little more than spectator status. [31]

The Memorandum of Agreement gave the Park Service greater influence over the activities of the guided tour operation. The cooperative nature of the agreement enabled the Park Service to extend a helping hand to the Austins. The Park Service "loaned" horses to assure higher quality animals for visitors, took reservations, and in general sought to improve the quality of service whenever possible. But much of the change was cosmetic in nature, and the improvement in the quality of the tours was minimal.

The new level of Park Service involvement was a mixed blessing. By taking reservations and supplying horses, the staff at the monument exerted at least a little influence over the operation. But conversely, because the Park Service took reservations, visitors assumed that the agency had control over the operation. Used to the high quality of visitor service, they often found the Keet Seel horse trip lacking. Many were angry about what they considered a lapse in responsibility by the Park Service.

Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, complaints about the horse operation increased. E. K. Austin was a "rough customer," unpopular with his neighbors, one who knew him recalled, and others remembered him in a similar fashion. One former employee called him the "bully of the canyon," another acquired the habit of calling him "Edd the Pirate," and recalled that he had to separate Austin and visitors on more than one occasion. One former superintendent recalled members of the Austin family getting into a fight with each other during a meeting with park rangers.

Visitors were often dissatisfied with their trip with the Austins. "Half starved" horses, poor service, sullen guides, and drunkenness headed the list of complaints. Many people came to the Park Service to express their dismay, in the hope that an agency that had built its reputation on service could act to stop what many regarded as a blemish on its record. The Park Service had a standard reply that frustrated both NPS people and visitors: because the Park Service did not control the Austins' land, it had little control over the horse operation. "Things here on the Navajo Reservation are not like other places," Jack Williams wrote in response to one complaint. "We are faced with jurisdictional and political problems that only the Navajo Tribal Council can alleviate." [32] Combined with the growing number of visitors who wished to go to Keet Seel, the Park Service recognized that it had a potentially major problem.

By the early 1970s, a consistent pattern was evident. The NPS had few options. Because Navajo National Monument was essentially an inholding on the Navajo reservation, the kind of control to which NPS officials were accustomed was elusive. Without any direct authority over private land and unable to reach one portion of the monument without the use of the Austin's land, the agency had to deal with a difficult situation. The best management alternative was to co-opt the Austins: show them the potential economic and cultural advantages of the Park Service approach to visitor service.

The cultural difference between the Austins and Park Service was vast. The Austins spoke only Navajo, and while some communication in English certainly occurred, for a topic as important as this, it was imperative to find someone who could communicate in the Navajo language. In April 1973, Clarence N. Gorman, then superintendent at Wupatki National Monument and later superintendent at Navajo National Monument, was called to Navajo to help bridge the gap. Chief Ranger Harold Timmons presented Gorman with a four-page list of topics he wanted covered with the Austins. Issues such as the treatment of visitors, courtesy, safety, promptness, and communications with Park Service were paramount. At a meeting, really a visitor service seminar conducted in the Navajo language, Gorman tried to convey techniques that would result in better service and fewer complaints. In the aftermath of Gorman's visit, conditions improved and the number of unhappy visitors declined. [33]

But a gulf remained. Navajo guides and Anglo visitors had different perceptions of the trip. Navajos saw themselves as guides rather than interpreters. They perceived their responsibility as limited to the safe delivery of visitors to the ruin and back. With a more instrumental than romantic approach to their animals, the guides often seemed uninterested and cruel in the eyes of their customers. A constant stream of complaints continued, reflecting a difference between expectation and actuality that characterized cross-cultural relations. The Park Service still had little ability to exercise substantive oversight. Ironically, for many visitors, riding horses with Indians on their trip to the ruins had significant cultural meaning. Despite any shortcomings, the Austins were part of the monument, their horse business an important component for visitors who sought a sense of being in the wild. [34]